At Left of the Dial festival in Rotterdam I grabbed the opportunity to learn a little more about some of the bands I saw for the first time.
South London’s PUNCHBAG arrived at Left of the Dial with no released music. They were invited by Windmill Brixton who had a curated set, and having seen a performance of theirs on Youtube recorded at that venue I was keen to catch them live. Earlier on the final day of the festival I sat down with Clara and Anders to learn more about this emerging band. I began by asking them about that show at Windmill Brixton.
Anders: Yeah, that was our fourth gig. We started gigging in January this year. Tim (Perry) is so good. If he likes you, they’ll just champion you: “We’ll just keep putting you on until other people catch on to it”, and that’s the greatest thing to find. And it’s always got a crowd.
Clara: It’s definitely a venue where it feels like exciting. And the music kind of fits there, because it’s really loud and quite gritty. But it’s also quite different from the stuff that they put on, because it’s super poppy as well. So I feel it kind of stands out a little bit there I guess.
Anders: It’s fun to have a grotty venue and just play the most sugary music you can, through a really fucking loud PA and it’s so sweaty still. And just having that contrast, it’s so fun. And that’s why Tim’s great, because he gets that and he gets that’s what we’re trying to do. Just be loud and still be poppy.
Clara: I guess it’s having those two things in unison at the same time. That’s what’s exciting to us I think..
How long have you been together as PUNCHBAG and is it just the two of you?
Clara: We play with a band, but it is a duo as well. We’re brother and sister, so we’ve known each other for a while! We’ve been making music for the last four or five years, but it’s only in the last year that we’ve arrived at a place that is really us. Anders producing was kind of an accident for us. It was hard to get sessions with producers at the beginning. I know what kind of vibe I want, but I don’t know how to do it yet. So Anders mocked up some demos.
Anders: I couldn’t produce at the time, it was so bad. It was these little speakers on my bunk bed with a 50 quid mike, but we loved it. We worked so hard. Looking back it’s like wow, but at the time it was in lockdown as well.
Clara: And then we just went at it for years until it felt like this is it, the place we want to be in, it feels like us. But it’s good that we spent quite a few years making loads of stuff, all the time. We’re constantly making. We still are. Writing, I need to do it all the time.
Anders: And producing, I’m on a laptop now but it’s as much fun. We’re so close that we can just sit by the laptop. When you’re producing stuff, you can spend six hours on an idea, and you hold on to it because you spent the time. But then you don’t need to say anything, I can just play something to you play it, and I can just tell if it’s good or not! You can’t say to a stranger “that’s a bit shit“. We have the same end goal in mind that we know we’re on the same page, and we know we’re just trying to get to the bit where it’s like too much, but just works.
I’m fascinated by that dedication, which is maybe not the right word, but because you’re loving what you’re doing, I suspect, the drive to be creative.
Clara: I know it’s something I need to do. It’s cathartic.
Anders: We live with our parents still, so we wake up in the morning, text and we’ll work all night until the early hours of the morning, it’s just so much fun.
Clara: We just love it. And the live set feels like the most important part. And I we want it to be a really joyful but intense kind of set. It being really cathartic and releasing of something. And I think it can be both. It can be really joyful, but it can also be kind of gritty.
Where does the inspiration come from?
Clara: I guess it’s taken from our lives, definitely. I have a notes page on my phone, but it’s mainly kind of about ourselves, our lives. That’s to me, the spot of where something maybe hurts a little bit to arrive at. I feel that’s a good thing. The same with the production as well, we’re pushing it a little bit,
Anders: The best stuff we do is when it just comes out of you. You don’t want it to be an easy thing to write in. Because the music’s joyful and fun, it means you can go way over the other side lyrically. Or if lyrically we have a hook that’s very poppy, we can go way over the other side on the production, it’s that balance. And also with the lyrics, it’s very personal but it’s also very observational. I love music like Bjork and LCD Soundsystem, those bands where it’s that observation thing. It can be really mundane, not too flowery. Lyrically, it’s not crazy metaphors and descriptions, but it’s just straight to the point. And that can be the most brutal sometimes.
And where are you in terms of releasing music?
Clara: We’ve got a lot of music stored up, so early next year.
Playing here at Left of the Dial when you’ve only been playing live since January and no music currently released must be thrilling. And its through that connection with Windmill Brixton.
Anders: It’s nuts! We’re so fucking lucky. And that’s what I was saying earlier. Tim is such a champion. He said he was doing this stage here at De Doelen (venue).
Clara: It was so great here last night with all the different bands, so eclectic. We’ve all done nights together. We know Ebbb, such a great band.
Anders: And what’s so nice is, our stuff has the grittiness thing, but then it’s also very pop, and having the freedom to open for like someone like Black Fondu which is industrial hip hop, or The Orchestra (For Now) with their longer songs, its so sick. That’s exactly the context you want our music to be seen in. You want to play to people that might not always listen to you. Everyone listens to pop music in some form but it’s so nice being able to play in front of a crowd where it’s not necessarily expected.
I think it’s a real sign of the times, music genres have never been so mish-mashed, which is a great thing. Probably since lockdown music is such a melting pot, so many amazing bands just mix it all up. Isn’t that just fantastic?
Anders: I feel like now we’re in such a good spot, everywhere. And also it’s funny, because it’s so spread out. You do have to put in the effort to find things, I think. You could very easily be “oh music’s not in a great spot” but everywhere from chart stuff with Charlie XCX, the production is so dissonant and crazy. And then in the left field, there’s so many insane bands like Maruja, playing amazing.
Clara: It’s also reflective of the mish-mashing of genres. It’s exactly what happens when you’re making something quite freely, and it’s quite natural and quite instinctive. If you go into a room where there’s an end goal to do something specific, you’re not going to turn it out. Some of the best things we’ve written, it’s an accident, you accidentally press this thing. That’s why it’s so much about on the spot, the energy in the room, what’s going on right there.
Anders: I feel now there’s so much rawness in music. With bands things are coming back, the energy and intensity. With our band we just want it to be as intense and fun as possible. It doesn’t need to be so perfect and uptight. It needs to have that edge. I’d rather people think “I fucking hate this” rather than think this is “nice” listening. And I feel that’s the same for a lot of bands right now. People aren’t trying to fit in necessarily, they’re just attempting to do something different and it’s really being rewarded.
Clara: People are hungry for it.
And after Left of the Dial do you have gigs lined up?
Yes!
19 November – SUPER STUPID 0001 at The Dublin Castle, London
4 December – OnlyBands at Paper Dress Vintage, London
2025
14 – 17 May – The Great Escape Festival, Brighton
For more information on PUNCHBAG please check their instagram and tiktok.